The Maison des Lanceurs d'Alerte has been providing whistleblowers with legal and psychological support since October 2018. Today, they need the help of civil society to continue this vital work.   

The Maison des Lanceurs d’Alerte is the first French NGO whose work is solely focused on defending, protecting, and supporting individual whistleblowers. Their support is not limited to legal advice and can include media, social and psychological support. Indeed, the Maison des Lanceurs d'Alerte works with occupational psychologists who work on a voluntary basis with whistleblowers.

The Maison des Lanceurs d'Alerte also advocates for the evolution of the law in favour of whistleblowers. With WIN and its partners, it contributed to the preparatory work for the European directive on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (in other words, whistleblowers). Now it is calling on the French government to ambitiously implement this directive adopted by the European Union in 2019. The goal is to go beyond the minimum standards the directive requires and make France an international example in the field of whistleblower protection.

The Maison des Lanceurs d'Alerte’s figures reveal the wide range of wrongdoing observed across sectors. In just over two years, they have received more than 200 requests for support, with 30 new requests every month. The diversity of these cases is surprising: corruption accounts for 33% of all cases, but there are also concerns regarding health, labour law, animal abuse, and violation of privacy rights. More than two-thirds of concerns brought to the Maison des Lanceurs d'Alerte are work-related, with an equal split between the private and public sectors. In one third of cases, the whistleblower is neither an employee nor volunteer of the organisation in which wrongdoing was observed, but a member of a non-profit organization, a client, or an ordinary citizen with access to compromising information.

Today, the Maison des Lanceurs d'Alerte needs the support of civil society. A third of its budget is currently based on donations. These donations not only guarantee stable, long-term support for whistleblowers, but demonstrate to both whistleblowers and public decision-makers that civil society is mobilized to defend those who expose wrongdoing and tell the truth in the face of powerful political and economic interests. 

To make a donation to the Maison des Lanceurs d’Alerte, go here. For more information about their work, visit their website. 

If you would like to highlight your whistleblowing events or activities on the WIN website, please drop us a line on info@whistleblowingnetwork.org